Rouran Khaganate

The Rouran Khaganate was the first great Mongolic power of the steppe, the empire that taught the Northern Wei what a nomad state could be. Rising from the Donghu remnants after the Xianbei moved into China, the Rouran broke from the Dai state, subdued the Tiele tribes, and in 402 their chief Shelun took the title of khagan, a word the Rouran invented and every steppe empire after them would borrow. For a century and a half they held Mongolia from a moving court, raiding the Wei frontier for grain and brides, sheltering Wei rebels, and trading horses for silk at the border markets. Their writing, preserved in a handful of inscriptions, belongs to the Mongolic family; their house law, the steppe decimal of thousands and myriads, passed to the Turks. At their height under Anagui the khaganate stretched from Manchuria to the Tarim approaches and treated with Liang China as an equal, addressing the southern court in the famous letter that called the south Wu and the steppe Mo. The end came from their own blacksmiths: the iron-working Turks under Bumin rose in 552, and by 555 the last khagan was dead and the Rouran scattered, some into the Sui armies, some, men still argue, riding west to become Europe's Avars.